One of the benefits of being active is a higher calorie burn, which helps you manage your weight without having to overly restrict your food intake. How many calories you earn depends on your weight goals and the extent of your activity. Whether your goal is to lose weight, put on weight, build muscle, become a better athlete or simply maintain a healthy weight to foster good health, you should pay attention to the number and types of calories you put in your body.

Calorie Needs

The average active woman between the ages of 31 and 50 needs about 2,200 calories per day, while the average active man needs between 2,800 and 3,000 calories daily. These needs may rise by 200 to 400 calories if you are younger than 31 and decline the same amount if you are older than 50. For those who are only moderately active, the needs are approximately 2,000 calories per day for women and 2,400 to 2,600 for men. The average woman, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, stands 5 feet, 4 inches tall and weighs 126 pounds. The average man is 5 feet, 10 inches tall and weighs 154 pounds.

Active Definitions

The USDA defines an “active” person as someone who walks 3 miles per day at a pace of 3 to 4 mph, or activity equivalent to this, while a moderately active person is someone who walks 1.5 to 3 miles per day, or equivalent activity. Someone who meets the minimum recommendations for exercise of 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity aerobic activity, such as walking, and two total-body strength-training sessions per week is considered moderately active. An active person exceeds these recommendations regularly and exercises 45 minutes or more at an intense level most days of the week. If, in addition to exercise, you have a physically demanding job, such as construction or landscaping, you may need even more calories daily than the typical “active” person.

Considerations

Your calorie needs may differ from the recommendations, especially if you are larger or smaller than the “average” person. Larger people burn more calories to do day-to-day activities and to sustain their bodily systems, such as breathing and pumping blood. Your body composition, or ratio of fat to lean muscle mass, also influences your calorie burn. Leaner people burn more calories because muscle mass requires more energy for your body to sustain. How many more really depends on much muscle mass you have, your size, age and gender. For example, a study published in a 2000 issue of the “Journal of Applied Physiology” found that 26 weeks of regular resistance training resulted in a 12 percent increase in daily calorie needs in older adults.

Weight Balance

If you are trying to lose weight, you’ll need to keep up your activity while simultaneously trimming calories. Consuming 500 calories fewer than you burn per day gives you a 3,500-calorie deficit in a week, the equivalent of one pound. If you want to gain weight, you’ll flip the equation and eat 250 to 500 calories more daily to create a 1,250- to 3,500-calorie surplus to result in a 1/2 to 1 pound gain each week. For weight management, aim to eat about as many calories as you burn. If you find you are gaining or losing weight without wanting to, you may have to tweak the amount of calories you consume because calorie estimates for your activity level, weight, age and gender are not always perfectly applicable to your needs.

About the Author

Andrea Cespedes is a professionally trained chef who has focused studies in nutrition. With more than 20 years of experience in the fitness industry, she coaches cycling and running and teaches Pilates and yoga. She is an American Council on Exercise-certified personal trainer, RYT-200 and has degrees from Princeton and Columbia University.